The An Emperor and the whole court were starting to feel a little sorry for the Grand Justiciar.

The Xiliang royal house had left him holding the bag.

The An Emperor spoke one word at a time. "Envoy of Xiliang, whether Ning Chen is truly alive, you will find out for yourself... the day he leads his army into your Xiliang.

As for everything you said earlier, this emperor will repeat it to Ning Chen word for word."

Yan Zhao's head was buzzing, and his face had gone white.

He didn't want to believe Ning Chen was alive. If he was, and he learned what Yan Zhao had said, there'd be hell to pay!

The An Emperor went on, "Envoy of Xiliang, this emperor will not agree to a single one of your terms.

You are a subject, and yet you would not kneel before this emperor... Very well. From now on, your King of Xiliang can come and do the kneeling.

You may withdraw. Go back to Xiliang, and the sooner the better."

Yan Zhao stared blankly and mumbled, "Impossible, absolutely impossible. Ning Chen can't still be alive. You're lying to me. I won't fall for it..."

The civil and military officials looked at him with pity.

Li Zhixing's voice was grave. "Her Majesty has proclaimed the great victory on the southern frontier to the whole realm. Every commoner in the capital knows our Great Xuan's Prince Regent is alive. Go ask around if you like.

And now Her Majesty commands you: withdraw!"

Yan Zhao turned and hurried out. He had to find out, as fast as he could, whether Ning Chen was really alive.

The Xuan Emperor, who hadn't said a word the whole time, finally spoke. "Ning Chen's fake death smoked out a whole pack of schemers. Now it's easy to tell which of them are men and which are ghosts!"

Heads nodded all around the court. He was right about that!

Meanwhile, far away in Chongzhou, Ning Chen had brought Pan Yucheng and the others down to Mirror Moon Fort's porridge stall.

The line in front…